stuartwilliams.net

by Stuart Williams and Billy Meikle

From a newspaper of the time

Few will have not heard of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of the great fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. 

Less will be familiar with his Holmes-like investigations in the Walsall area, when in 1906 he encountered the mysterious case of the Great Wyrley Horse Maimings, and saved a shy half-British, half-Indian lawyer named George Edalji, who had allegedly penned threatening letters and mutilated animals, from injustice. That case is well-documented elsewhere, of course. See this link.

Of more local interest, perhaps, is the bizarre way in which Walsall historian and photographer Billy Meikle became involved.  At the time, there was little else of note happening in the country as Meikle says, and “…the whole press of England was centred on Wyrley and its doings.”  The outrages had been dormant for some time, but when they began again, the Daily Mail newspaper sent a man hot-foot from London to report on the savage attacks.

The George Hotel, The Bridge, Walsall, early 1900s

Arriving in Walsall one morning, he duly rolled up at the old George Hotel, on The Bridge, but the lady clerk was wary of allowing him a room, as he had no luggage.  He explained that he had hurried to Walsall at a moment’s notice, without time to pack. Accepting this, she booked him in. 

The very next morning Billy Meikle had to visit the George Hotel on business.  Not having quite finished his breakfast there with a friend he refers to simply as “the Dover Sole”, Billy spied the Daily Mail man handing over a small parcel to the clerk, asking her to take charge of it until he returned from Great Wyrley.

Speculating what it might contain, Meikle and the “Sole” deduced, rightly, that it was a dirty shirt collar to be cleaned. The reporter having departed for Great Wyrley, Meikle persuaded the clerk to let them have the collar, and, with a wicked sense of humour, he began drawing upon it, in ink, a number of sinister illustrations.  These included a skull and crossbones, a dagger dripping blood, a coffin inscribed to say that the reporter had died suddenly, and a dread warning against interfering in things that concerned him not.  Billy signed the collar as “The Wyrley Ripper”.

 The Daily Mail Man's collar by Meikle

Later that day Meikle was having dinner at the Red Lion Hotel in Cheslyn Hay when the reporter passed by the window, looking for lodgings.  Billy at once revealed to the proprietoress, Miss Sayer, what he had done to the poor man’s collar, and she entered into the spirit of the joke when the reporter came through the door..

“Daily Mail man”, as Meikle refers to him, spoke first, asking whether Miss Sayer could accommodate him for a week or more?  “Yes”, she replied, “We could, but we don’t like detectives.” To which his reply was “But I’m no detective.” “But you’re just as bad,” she said, “You are a Daily Mail man!”

This startled him, and he responded “How did you know that?”  Miss Sayer returned, in lively fashion “Oh! Don’t think we are asleep here.  We knew all about your arrival at Walsall last night, without any luggage or even a clean collar.  You will be lucky if you can get back to London again, but you can stay here if you like, and take the risk.”

But Daily Mail man was not one to be frightened; he checked his room and signed in.  After a drink, he returned to Walsall by the 3pm train to collect his luggage, which had by now arrived at the ‘George’.

The Red Lion Inn, Wyrley Bank, Cheslyn Hay, early 1900s, by Meikle

However, when the lady clerk there gave him his parcel, he unwrapped it and upon seeing the gruesome collar, turned deathly pale with shock.  Shaking, he rushed off to the nearby Walsall Observer office, where he showed the collar to Mr. Harrison, who spotted Billy’s handiwork immediately, as he had provided the old town paper with many drawings before.  Knowing that it was, after all, just a joke, set Daily Mail man’s mind at rest, though he must have been fuming!  And so he decided to have his revenge upon the jokers…

The reporter returned to Wyrley by the 4pm train and dropped his luggage off at the Red Lion, where Meikle was having his tea.  He went up to his room, washed and, ordering dinner for 7pm, left.  Moments later, a terrific scream echoed from the stairs, down which the maid (who had gone into the reporter’s room) was leaping six steps at a time, yelling at the top of her voice “He’s here Miss, we have got him in the house!  He’ll kill us all!”  “Who? Who? Who?” asked Miss Sayer, rather owlishly. “The Cattle Ripper,” replied the maid, who then promptly fainted.

It seems that ‘Daily Mail man’ had placed his evilly-decorated collar on the knob of the dressing table mirror, and the sight of this is what caused the panic at the Red Lion at Cheslyn Hay, that day when a national paper came to town and met its match in Billy Meikle.  What Sir Arthur Conan Doyle might have thought of this humorous little footnote to the mystery of the Wyrley Horse Maimings, if he were told, is sadly not recorded.

George Edalji

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